Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Somewhere over the Southern Carpathian Mountains, Romania
Adam sat on the plane facing the CIA asset, drinking coffee that tasted like it had been brewed too long and like the metal cup it was in.
She glared at him from her seat, the tape over her mouth preventing her from saying anything.
Every once in a while, she’d look at her hands, bound on her lap.
Rub her thumbs together like she could use something to do.
After he’d disarmed her, the guys hauled her out of the car and put plastic ties on her.
Adam had tossed her over his shoulder and carried her onto the plane.
The loud protesting got her tape over her mouth, but he’d figured it was a front.
All she yelled about was her necklace, which Kai had grabbed and brought on the plane with them.
“Found the scanner.” Ice got out of his chair across the way and stood in the aisle.
The rest of the guys were positioned between Adam and the front of the plane. All minding their own business—and listening in case he started talking to her. Frigid air blasted through the AC vents overhead, as Kai always turned the air to maximum anytime they flew.
Ash was still pale, probably too pale, but Dan had him lying flat and hooked up to an IV. Dan had cleaned and stitched the wound in Ash’s calf, so now it was a waiting game to see how Ash would fare.
Ice slumped into the chair beside the asset and lifted her hands, pressing the pad of her fingers and thumbs one by one onto the small square screen of the device he held.
“Go ahead.” Adam drained the last few mouthfuls of his lukewarm coffee and set the cup on the tiny table beside his left knee. “Someone grab me a pair of tube socks!”
The asset watched the screen of the scanner, her face not quite as impassive as she probably thought it was. But then, this seasoned CIA agent probably put on a front about everything. Especially that necklace she had tucked back down the neck of her shirt.
He studied her, trying to figure her out and wondering if he ever would. “Twice now you’ve threatened to kill me.”
Kai tossed over a pair of white socks in a bundle. “Was it something you said?”
Adam lifted one of her feet and put it on his knee, rolling a sock on and checking the cuts and scrapes on the soles of her feet at the same time. Making sure she didn’t have an infection. He did the same with the other, noting that he was right. Her skin was chilled.
She looked at him, a question in her eyes. Probably wondering why he was being nice.
Adam set her other foot down and stared at her, offering nothing. Leaving her off balance and wondering who they really were—and what might happen next—would exhaust her more than anything.
If he kept her awake long enough and frustrated her with questions, she would eventually say something she didn’t intend to say.
She’d been through a harrowing experience but had the wherewithal to follow orders and go up against the whole team—pitching their loyalty against them by threatening his life.
She was good. And yeah, she was gorgeous.
Probably something else she used as a tactic to complete a mission.
Another tool in her toolbelt, even if her hair was stringy and tangled right now and she wore clothes that didn’t fit.
Despite the scratches and bruises, it wasn’t hard to see she’d clean up in a way that would distract any guy with a pulse.
“Whoa.” Ice had returned to his seat across the aisle, a laptop open on his knees. “Got the full rundown. Stephanie-Jo Davis.”
Her expression hardened, but Steph held Adam’s gaze.
Adam shifted in the seat, trying to stretch out the knots in his back without breaking their stare down. “Probably the cover story.”
“I’ll say. Works for a shipping company out of Baltimore. Been there nearly fifteen years and is their top salesperson.” Ice scrolled up the screen. “Social media accounts. Probably all lies made to look like she’s active online.”
Adam glanced at her. “Maybe she is. It’s more suspicious to not be these days.”
“Sure, because if anyone looks her up—like me—they find a woman who likes rom com novels and regularly thanks people for recommendations on what to read next.”
Adam looked at her, trying to discern if she was the kind of woman who read romance stories, then went to work and held a gun to the head of people who were supposed to be on the same team as her.
His phone buzzed.
“Finally.” Adam drew it out. “Keep looking into her. I want everything.”
“Even if it’s all fake?”
“We need to know it all if we’re going to file a complaint or something.” Adam lifted his chin to her. “Does the CIA do that? Guess I’ll find out.” He tapped the phone number Noah had sent him and listened to it ring.
She didn’t need to hear the conversation, or even hear his end of it, so he got up and motioned to Kai. His buddy lifted his chin, indicating that he would keep an eye on her.
Adam wandered down the aisle to the tiny alcove between the galley and the bathroom, then turned his back to her and the rest of his team. He didn’t need the distraction of his enemy, or those he was loyal to, while he played yet another chess match. This time with the CIA.
The call connected with a series of clicks. “Division Zero Operations.”
“This is Zero-One,” Adam said. “We have a problem.”
“Please describe the nature of your problem.”
It was like talking to an EMS dispatcher, but on a much more relaxed scale. “My problem is your asset, Stephanie-Jo Davis, or whatever her real name is. She tried to steal tech from us that has nothing to do with her or the CIA. Under orders, she threatened to kill me and take it.”
“Am I to assume she was not successful?”
“Sorry to disappoint you. You can’t have the drone, and I’m still alive.” Adam leaned back against the bathroom door. “Maybe you should let your assets know there’s a Division Zero team again.”
“Because that makes you untouchable?”
“If ‘untouchable’ means that no one from the CIA holds a gun to my head, then yeah.” The line went quiet for a second, as if he was on mute. Adam gripped the phone. “You still there?”
“Where is the asset now?”
“Tied up.”
The dispatcher said, “You neutralized the threat.”
“That’s correct.” Adam frowned.
“So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is her orders. Given to her by the CIA. Orders to do whatever she deemed necessary to get her hands on tech we were contracted to retrieve.”
“Hmm.”
Then nothing.
The line went quiet again.
Conferring with his manager, probably. If Adam muttered a comment to himself, they’d probably hear it even if he couldn’t hear them.
The door to the cockpit opened, and the copilot stuck his head out. “We’ll be on the ground in thirty.”
“Got it.” Adam shifted the phone away from his mouth and yelled down the plane. “On the ground in thirty!”
The door was barely shut again before the dispatcher came back on the line. “Your orders are to terminate the asset.”
“Excuse me?”
“She’ll be listed as killed while in the field, on a mission for her country. She’ll die a hero.” He barely paused before he said, “Thank you for your service.”
Adam lowered the phone and gave himself a second to be all, What the what? in his head, while outwardly he projected composure.
Kai stood in the aisle, facing Adam, where he was able to see both Stephanie-Jo and the screen of Ice’s computer on opposite sides of the aisle as well as Adam at the end of it.
Dan loaded medical supplies back into a couple of duffel bags, a seatbelt now snug around Ash’s waist.
“He has more color now.” Adam wandered by, holding on to the seat headrests as he picked his way down the aisle.
“He’ll be good.” Dan settled into a seat and belted himself in.
Kai cleared his throat. “What did the CIA say?”
Adam glanced at Kai, then at Steph. “You don’t want to know.”
She stared at the window, pretending she didn’t care.
Adam slid into a seat facing Ice, with the asset across the aisle to his right. “So who is she really?”
Kai fist-bumped him on the way past.
Ice buckled his seatbelt, fixated on the screen. “Found something interesting on a site I’m guessing whoever scrubbed her identity never discovered. An image from years ago. She looks about seven. I could surmise the reasons why the CIA might not have flagged it.” He turned the laptop around.
“Please don’t.” Adam studied the image of a girl in a Halloween costume, holding hands with a man in an army uniform. The patches and pins were just wrong enough to be fake, but they were off in ways that told Adam this guy knew where they really went.
Ice clocked Steph looking at them. By the time Adam glanced at her, she’d looked away again. Ice lifted one brow and turned the laptop back around. “I’m running—whoa.”
Adam looked at her, rather than ask Ice what he’d found. “Who is he?” Beneath them, the landing gear descended.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Ice?”
“According to this, his name is Silas Ilman. He’s wanted by Interpol and the British government for questioning in matters of national security, which could be nothing or anything.
He hasn’t been seen in decades if the age of this stuff is anything to go by.
This photo taken might be the last time he was seen in public. ”
“So he disappeared.”
“Around the time that photo was taken.”
Adam glanced at her. She flinched at that, just a miniscule movement he almost missed. The plane touched down, bouncing onto the ground before the pilots hit the brakes and they slowed to a nearstop.
Ice peered out the window. “They’re coming to meet us.”
Adam said, “Kai, Dan, deliver the drone.”
“Copy that.” Kai walked down the aisle with the drone on his shoulder, hauling it like a sack of fertilizer.
Dan stopped in front of Adam. “Ash will be fine until he wakes up.”
“We’ll be wheels-up again by then.”
Dan nodded and followed Kai to the door, ducking his huge frame to get out. Adam sat across from Steph, tugged the tape off her mouth, and leaned back. Then he flipped his phone over and over on his knee.
She worked her mouth around and winced, still keeping her attention on the window. “This is France, but we aren’t at an airport.”
“Do you really think I owe you an explanation about anything?” He let the phone tap his knee once more, then held it still. “You owe me. More than you know.”
The skin around her eyes flexed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think the CIA said when I told them you failed the mission?” Adam lifted one shoulder. “I informed them that you don’t have the drone and I’m still alive.”
“Killing you wasn’t part of the deal. Are you gonna hold that over my head forever?”
He nearly said yes. “Forever won’t be very long.”
That dark gold gaze of hers bored into him, and suddenly she seemed fragile. Something from his ancestors decided to wake up and give him advice about throwing her over his shoulder again and hiding her from their enemies while he went out and slayed everyone who wanted to hurt her.
“You aren’t going to kill me.”
Adam said, “I’m not a murderer, and neither is anyone else on my team.”
“I thought you were Division Zero?”
“We do impossible jobs. But we don’t take contracts and execute people.”
“What if the target was a genocidal maniac or someone who hurts children? Would you do the job then?”
“This isn’t about me.”
She countered with, “I think it is.”
“Because you have no intention of allowing this to be about you?”
That almost got him a smile. “If you let me call the CIA—”
“We’ll see.” Adam twisted to look over his shoulder at the open airplane door.
A second later Kai rushed in. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
Dan came aboard right behind him. “Your buddy Johannsen wasn’t here. He’s out sick, or never showed up for work, or something my rudimentary French skills couldn’t figure out.”
Adam glanced at them. “You handed over the drone, right?”
Kai slumped into a seat across the aisle, facing Ice. “I doubt we’ll get paid since there’s a piece of the drone missing. We didn’t bring the whole thing back intact.”
“The guidance chip was gone.” Dan headed down the aisle to his seat. “Apparently, we should call Johannsen if we want our payment, because they don’t know anything about our agreement with him.”
“They pretty much chased us out.” Kai shook his head. “Told us they were getting ready for a launch. Some big project they had going on that we shouldn’t be here for.”
The ground under the plane started to rumble.
Adam got up from his seat, crossed the aisle, and peered out the window on the far side. The others went to the door. A second later, she appeared beside him. Sliding into the seat on this side.
“I hate to state the obvious…”
Adam had no problem doing that, especially if it sounded like an order from the team leader. “We might want to get our wheels up. There’s a rocket launching across the facility, and the smoke is headed this way.”
Kai stuck his head back in. “Can’t we sit here and wait until—”
“We’re leaving! Right now!” The copilot rushed down the aisle. “Move. Move. Get the door shut!”
Dan and Kai ran to their seats, close to Ash. Ice slumped into the chair where Adam had been sitting, while Adam reached over and buckled Steph in.
“I need a phone.”
The airplane engines roared. Under them the ground rumbled so hard the plane wheels bounced off the asphalt enough to shake him into his seat.
“We’ve done this already.” He’d told her to wait before, that they had other priorities. “You always pick the worst times to need something?”
“So this would be a bad time to tell you I need to pee?”
Adam barely got his seatbelt buckled before the rumbling engines got them moving, gaining speed and lifting off the runway. The plane shuddered into the air, just as a plume of superheated smoke washed over the ground and hit the spot right where they’d been only seconds ago.
He gripped the sides of the seat and the plane took off, trembling as it climbed sharply into the air.